Bohemia, from the earliest times to the fall of national independence in 1620 / With a short summary of later events

by C. Edmund Maurice

Bohemia, however, was not the sole obstacle to the union of Christendom against the Turks. The Emperors of Germany had been growing steadily weaker during the last century; and many princes had wearied of Frederick III.’s government, and were looking about for a strong ruler who might put down the divisions of the Empire, before leading them against the Turks. Under these circumstances many considered that George of Bohemia would be the right man for the place. In Hungary, too, Matthias had found great difficulty in holding his own against the nobles; and there again, though much against his will, George was looked upon as a possible substitute for the unpopular king. In his own country he seemed to be gaining steadily in power. He had restored, to a great extent, the influence of the towns which had been decaying during the Hussite wars, and he gathered round him, not only the most eminent men in Bohemia, but also the most distinguished foreigners from Germany and Italy.

But, in the meantime, Pius II. was becoming alarmed at the power of this king. He had hoped that George would have come to Rome to declare himself a true son of the Church. He found that no progress was being made in the anti-Turkish crusade; and he heard, with alarm, that the Archbishop of Mainz and other German ecclesiastics were preparing to demand the fulfilment of that decree of the Council of Constance, according to which a new Council was to be summoned every ten years. These suspicions of the Pope were much encouraged by one of his advisers, Fantinus de Valle, who tried to convince him that heresy had recently gained new life, and that there was a special revival of the teaching of Wyclif. At last in January, 1462, George consented to send an embassy to Rome, stating the terms on which he would make the necessary submission to the Pope. This submission was to be given, practically, on the recognition by Pius of the Compacts of Basel. The Pope was, in the first place, indignant that George should send representatives instead of coming himself to Rome; and he was perhaps not more favourably disposed to the deputation, that Koranda, the Taborite preacher, was one of the members of it; for Koranda dwelt with considerable enthusiasm on the victories of the Taborites in the Utraquist wars, and maintained that they had acted by the grace of God, and by the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.

At last on March 31st the Pope, in a large assembly, declared that the Communion in both kinds, having been condemned by the Council of Constance, and at one time by the Council of Basel, must be considered as a disorderly and heretical arrangement; that the Compacts had been only a temporary provision; and he now declared them at an end. The Bohemian ambassadors, accompanied by Fantinus de Valle, returned to Prague to report the news to the Assembly. When they had delivered their report, George declared that the Pope had no right to take away what the Council of Basel had conceded, and what Eugenius had indirectly sanctioned. If any Pope, he said, may undo what his predecessors have done, what security is there for justice? Then, referring to the charge that he had violated his coronation oath in not suppressing heresy, he ordered the oath to be read publicly. Then he proceeded to say that, in declaring he would suppress heretical wickedness, he had never meant that he would suppress Utraquism, since, said he, “it is founded in the Gospel of Christ, according to the institution of the primitive Church, and has been conceded to us as a privilege of our virtue and devotion, by the Council of Basel. And as to swearing to oppose the practice, no indeed! But know for certain that, since we were born in that Communion, since we were nurtured in it, and since, by God’s help, we have been raised to the royal dignity in it, so we promise to guard and defend it, and to live and die for it; and our wife and children, and all who do any thing for the love of us, ought to live and die in the defence of the Compacts; nor do we believe that there is any other way of salvation for our souls than the Communion in both kinds, according to the institution of our Saviour.” Then he turned to the nobles who stood about him, and asked them for their decision on the question.

But it was no longer possible to maintain the former unity in the face of this declaration; and while the Utraquist nobles promised readily to stand by the King, Sternberg declared, on behalf of the Catholics, that, while they were willing to support the King in all that concerned the honour of his kingdom, they had not been consulted about the acceptance of the Compacts, and that George must not look to them to defend them. The next day Fantinus de Valle was admitted to speak on behalf of the Pope. He at once announced the revocation of the Compacts by Pius, and the deposition from the clerical office of all who gave the cup to the laity. Finally he wound up his speech by fiercely threatening George with deposition from his throne, if he did not obey the Pope. George thereupon turned to the lords, who stood round him, and said, “Noble lords, you chose me as your king and protector; and since you have the power of choosing a lord to protect you, you ought to work with him.” He then burst out into a fierce denunciation of the Roman see, declaring that it was a seat of pestilence; and on the following day Fantinus was seized and imprisoned.

The declaration of hostility seemed now sufficiently clear on both sides; but again new considerations delayed the final outburst. The Emperor Frederick had just been engaged in a war with his brother Albert about some claims in the Archduchy of Austria. Albert succeeded in defeating the Emperor, and imprisoning him at Vienna; but George hastened to Vienna, rescued the Emperor, and restored him to the throne. Frederick was full of gratitude; and, while confirming all the liberties of Bohemia, he persuaded the Pope to abstain from excommunicating George. Pius, still bent on the Turkish war, and knowing probably that Frederick would find some sympathy for an anti-Papal policy, consented to a curious compromise. He would not issue a formal Bull of anathema against George; but he sent messengers to the citizens of Breslau, releasing them from the treaty which they had recently made, and encouraging them to rebel. At the same time he tried to stir up discontent among the nobles. Many of these had already become alarmed at the growing power of their king. Although he had strictly recognised the Constitutional rights of the Assembly, yet the expedition to Vienna had given an opportunity for reasserting one of the privileges about which the Bohemian nobles were most sensitive; namely, the power of refusing to follow the King when he made war outside the country. The opposition to this expedition was speedily followed by fiercer attacks; and the lords now accused George of illegal taxation, of interference with the coinage, and of manipulating the land register, so as to reduce to feudal submission those who were legally independent. With regard to most of the nobles, however, there seemed an unwillingness at first to push things to an extremity; but a Moravian named Hynek of Lichtenberg, who had long cherished a personal jealousy against the king, broke out into open insurrection, and set on fire some of the towns in Moravia. Hoping to secure the Pope’s sympathy in this rebellion, Hynek sent to Rome for advice as to the course that he should pursue; but, before Pius could commit himself to a distinct answer to this question, he was taken ill, and died in August, 1464.

George was well pleased to hear that a Venetian Cardinal had been elected Pope. But Paul II., though at first apparently friendly to George, was irritated at some delay in the formal congratulation on his accession which was due to him from the King of Bohemia. Hynek soon succeeded in getting a ready hearing from those Cardinals who were most opposed to George; and, in spite of the protest of the Bishop of Olmütz and of many leading people in Moravia, Paul was induced to command George to withdraw his forces from the siege of Hynek’s castle. George remonstrated with the Pope; but the previous irritation was revived by the rumour that George had refused to send ambassadors for fear of their being ill-treated at Rome. The continued attempts on Hynek’s castle, and the renewal of the siege of Breslau, were treated as acts of contumacy; and at last, on August 6, 1465, Paul issued a Bull deposing George from the throne, and authorising the legate to punish all who should still adhere to him.

In the meantime the growing bitterness of the Catholic nobles had been increased by a personal quarrel between George and Zdenek of Sternberg. Although George had been forced to rely upon this nobleman in his attempts to conciliate the Catholics, he soon found that Zdenek’s character was not deserving of confidence; and he was forced to refuse him a wardship, for which he applied, on the ground that he had abused his trust on a former occasion. This reproach roused Zdenek to still further opposition; and he induced the lords to found a League in defence of the Pope. The immediate object of Paul and the rebel lords was to find a king for Bohemia; and they fixed on Matthias of Hungary, who, though he owed much friendship and help to George, was easily attracted by the hope of a new kingdom. Many of the important towns of Bohemia fell away from the King, and joined the lords against him. The four great towns of Moravia formed a special League for the defence of the Catholic faith. Pilsen and Budweis, always inclined to the Catholic cause, speedily joined this League; and the town of Görlitz, the centre of a special district in Silesia, was hard pressed, on account of its loyalty to the king. George was so eager for peace that he consented to a meeting with the rebels at Prague, at which he defended himself from the various charges brought against him by the nobles; and he produced some of the charters from Carlstein to prove the legality of his actions. Sternberg refused to believe George’s assertion that he had shown them all the charters which concerned their rights; and he demanded that Carlstein and its contents should be handed over to himself and his friends, and that the charters should be submitted to the Emperor for confirmation. George indignantly refused these proposals, which apparently went beyond the wishes of many of the lords; but the Pope frightened the rebels into new opposition, by another Bull which placed Bohemia under an interdict.

George now appealed from the Pope to a new Council, and called on Casimir of Poland to intercede between him and Paul. Casimir willingly undertook this negotiation, to which some victories of George seemed to give a hope of success; but the attempt at compromise completely broke down; and the Poles joined the anti-Utraquist alliance. Rosenberg, who had stood by the King for some time, now went over to Sternberg; and, when George advanced to besiege Olmütz, his own soldiers deserted his banner. George was now compelled to retreat to Prague in April, 1469; and the Legate supposed him to be so completely crushed that he offered him the following terms of peace. He was to return, with all his servants, to the Catholic faith; to give up all Articles which the Church condemned; to restore all ecclesiastical property; to recognise Matthias as his son and successor, and allow him to appoint the Archbishop and the heads of all the churches in Prague; and, finally, to give up to the Legate the arch-heretic Rokycana.

Not many even of George’s enemies could have expected him to accept these terms; and the consequence of their proposal was an exchange of fierce defiances between the two parties, ending in a formal election of Matthias as king of Bohemia, by the rebel nobles. But the heretic King was not so easily to be beaten. On January 1, 1470, he sent a letter to the princes of the German Empire, which reads more like the manifesto of a conqueror than the appeal of a defeated and deposed king. He set forth in bitter language the treatment which he had received from the Pope; and he warned the princes that unless they would support him in this crisis, he would break off all connection between Bohemia and the Empire, and stand alone.

In the meantime his enemies had begun to be divided among themselves. The six towns, of which Görlitz was the centre, had been forced to yield for a time to the Catholic League and had been placed under the rule of Sternberg’s son. They had soon found him so oppressive that they revolted against him and drove him out; and when Zdenek appealed to Matthias, Matthias treated his complaints with contempt. Rosenberg and Gutenstein returned to their allegiance to George; and many of the towns of Silesia and Moravia began to cry out against the government of the League. Seizing this opportunity, George once more invaded Moravia, and gained victory after victory over Matthias.